Director of cricket Dougie Brown admitted Warwickshire had “only themselves to blame” after a very poor batting display sentenced them to a nine-run YB40 defeat to Worcestershire.

With half the group games still remaining, the Bears have only pride to play for after an increasingly familiar plot unfolded at New Road: a good bowling and fielding effort, let down by untidy batting.

On a slow but decent pitch, a target of 210 should have been within Warwickshire’s compass. But none of the top order delivered the match-shaping innings required and only a plucky ninth-wicket partnership of 47 in seven overs between Ateeq Javid and Stef Piolet took them close.

The result, which maintains Worcestershire’s glimmer of hope of progressing in the competition, immediately snuffed out hopes of a revival which had stirred with the Bears’ victory at Hove two days earlier.

And Brown badly needs his batsmen to get firing this week when they return to championship action against Surrey at Guildford.

“We only had ourselves to blame for the defeat, losing too many wickets and not getting enough partnerships established,” he said. “Lots of batsmen got starts but nobody went big.

“It was a slow wicket with almost no bounce at all but that’s not an excuse. We gave them probably 15 too many runs and then lost too many wickets.

“We know we are not far away from playing very solid cricket but we have not seen enough evidence of solid cricket this season. Now we get back into championship cricket at Guildford and we know how important that game is.

“Let’s hope we can take our best form there and show it over four days because that’s what we haven’t done so far – maintain our best cricket over the duration of a full game.”

Ian Westwood and Keith Barker are in line to return after injury at Guildford, where Ricky Ponting will be making his home debut for Surrey.

But whether Boyd Rankin figures in the match remains to be seen.

Rankin will be with England for the ODI against New Zealand at Trent Bridge on Wednesday, the day the Bears start against Surrey.

“We have the option of pulling Boyd into the game for day two,” Brown said. “It’s great for him to get the call and for Warwickshire to have so many players playing at a higher level but we will have to see how he comes through both mentally and physically.

“Mentally, it is quite challenging when you are drafted in and exposed to that environment, while we need to make sure his workloads are not too high because the last thing we need is for him to break down.”